Yep, there she was, Ashley Dupre, with her creative and profitable experience between the sheets, giving advice to New York's sexlorn in a newspaper that puts a new down in downmarket.

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Still, there is a certain logic in setting up a woman who made so many mistakes before the age of 24 as a Dear Abby for the '10s.

As we all know, those mistakes go far beyond her error of getting a "Hang in There" tattoo in Latin. or agreeing to have sex with Spitzer while he still had black knee socks on.

Dupre is a rich girl who decided the best way to maintain the lifestyle to which she'd become accustomed would be to have sex for money with objectionable guys. Over and over.

Gotta have those Birkin bags and a huge apartment in the Flatiron District while you're a struggling singer!

Why hear from dignified young actresses and musicians who choose to stay vertical to make ends meet?

Hearing the world view of someone who turned the oldest tricks in the book affords us such sage wisdom as this from Dupre: "Guys are primal." Isn't she the first one you think of when you want advice on love, children, and gift items?

She has been penitent on her MySpace page after meeting Russell Simmons in yoga class and siphoning off some of the record mogul's inner peace as they did the downward dog.

Regrets, yes, though she didn't go as far as even greedier Imelda Marcos, who crawled up a church aisle on her knees. Guess that position would be kind of redundant.

It's a wonder that "David K of Tribeca" and "Meredith of Queens" needed to seek out the counsel of the former prostitute.

It's also a wonder how they knew Dupre would have her first column Sunday and had already written to that fact-challenged paper with questions like "My girlfriend says she doesn't like porn. Is she lying?"

Hey, if her editors want to give the wanna-be singer her 16th minute of fame and they're consenting adults, who are we to be snarky about it?

They're providing a service for those who don't frequent porn sites. Where else would we have learned that Liberator sex futons are having a Christmas sale if Dupre hadn't given us the hot tip?

Political cynics might wonder if Dupre isn't just being used, this time between sheets of paper, to keep Client No. 9's naughtiness in the public eye as he tries to rise from the Ashleys and run for office again.